Processing Error
by Navy Babe
Summary: Molly Hooper lets it slip that she loves Sherlock Holmes. He reacts in an unexpected and wholly Sherlock manner. A post-Reichenbach fic.


My first foray into Sherlolly! Concrit is seriously my friend while I'm working on still finding these characters' voices - comments in general are very much appreciated! If this looks familiar, it's because I also post under the name sundance201 on ao3. Thanks and hope you enjoy! Nothing here belongs to me except the idea.

* * *

Ever since Sherlock's miraculous "resurrection," he'd been spending more time in the lab at St. Bart's than what used to be normal. Molly wasn't quite sure why, but imagined that it had something to do with the lingering tension that she would sense whenever he came into the lab or the morgue with John. Everyone in their little world was glad to have him back, but she knew that it was difficult sometimes still, especially for John.

So she'd let him hide out in her lab. Of course she did. They'd started seeing each other, officially, after his return, and Molly was glad to have as much time with him as possible, even if most of his time in the lab was spent looking at samples through a microscope. And he'd really made an effort to behave lately, which Molly found incredibly endearing.

But it also made it even more difficult to deal with him when he was being a prat.

"Molly, it's taking far too long to get that sample; I knew if I wanted it done efficiently I should have just done it myself," Sherlock muttered, not even looking up from his microscope as he threw out his scathing barb.

Molly sighed and carefully put the beaker back in the holder (no matter how upset she was with Sherlock, she was always careful around the equipment) and turned to him, hands on her hips and cheeks flushed in anger. "God knows that I love you, Sherlock Holmes, but you are seriously on my last nerve. Now you can either let me get this sample in peace or get the hell out of the lab!"

Old Molly would have clapped her hands over her mouth and turned beet red in embarrassment, but this older, wiser Molly had gained quite a bit of confidence when it came to Sherlock Holmes. Having the man live with you for a month and then randomly drop in for the next two years tended to weed out useless emotions like embarrassment. But even with her new-found confidence, she was not going to touch her accidental confession with a ten-foot pole unless Sherlock brought it up. She hoped and prayed he wouldn't, but she also knew him, and squared her shoulders to silently prepare for battle.

Sherlock looked up from the microscope and stared at her, slowly blinking once. Molly was slightly out of breath and staring back at him, eyebrows raised as if awaiting his answer. "Say again?" he muttered, his eyes rapidly moving over her, clearly attempting to deduce her for some strange reason.

"I said that you need to finish up your damn tests without being a total prat or you need to get out of the lab!" Molly said, rolling her eyes as she practically watched the cogs in Sherlock's head spin.

"That wasn't actually what you said at all, but what did you say before that?"

She fought to keep her face angry instead of grimacing. Of course Sherlock would want the exact words that she'd said. "That you're on my last nerve. And let me tell you, Sherlock-"

But he cut her off. "No, not that part. The part where you said," and then his voice got higher pitched, and in a disturbingly good imitation of her own, he said, "God knows that I love you, Sherlock Holmes."

She laughed and shook her head. There was no point in keeping up her façade after he had called her on it. She decided that it was best to just address it head-on, Sherlock wouldn't let it go otherwise. "If you remembered exactly what I said, inflection and everything, why exactly did you need me to repeat it?"

He began shaking his head and blinking rapidly. "People don't say that, Molly."

Narrowing her eyes at his strange behavior, she started to move closer to where Sherlock was perched on the lab stool. "Sherlock, what are you on about? People say 'I love you' all the time. And it's not exactly like it's a shock…I've been in love with you for years. You've known! I can't even count the number of times that you exploited my crush on you!" She didn't understand why Sherlock was seemingly so surprised by this statement; he of all people should have deduced how she felt about him long ago.

He was almost shaking now, his eyes rapidly darting around to look at anything but her, his fingers tapping an erratic rhythm on his thighs. He shook his head forcefully and then sighed, explaining it as if to a child. "No. But you've never said it before. People don't say it to me, Molly Hooper. People don't love me."

She was finally close enough to touch him, but she stopped herself. Something was clearly bothering him, this strange, brilliant, wonderful man, and she wasn't sure if her touch would do any good or if it would make his reaction worse. "Don't be daft, Sherlock. Of course people love you."

Shaking his head again, he finally met her gaze, still blinking in that strangely exaggerated way, his eyes wild and confused. "No. People tolerate me. People hate me. A very few number of people like me. But I am not loved."

She suddenly had a flash of memory from long ago, from that time when the world thought that Sherlock Holmes was dead, one of the nights that John had asked her to come over and they talked about some of the old cases. He'd told her about the time in the countryside, when Sherlock was confronted with doubt, a foreign emotion, and how he couldn't process it. That massive mind of his couldn't process a silly human feeling and it practically sent him over the edge. For a little bit at least. Was this the same? Was this Sherlock Holmes' reaction to love? "Sherlock…lots of people love you. Me, John, Mrs. Hudson…Mycroft…"

"Mycroft doesn't count," he retorted immediately and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the typical response to his brother's name. "John and Mrs. Hudson do not love me, Molly Hooper. They may have affection for me, but it is not love. It cannot be love."

Molly's eyes narrowed at his blatant disregard for his friends' obvious feelings for him. "Really? You think that they'd put up with even half the crap that you've put them through if they didn't love you? Sherlock…just because they don't say it doesn't mean they don't feel it. I've been in love with you for years and-"

He cut her off again, rather childishly (but what should she expect from Sherlock Holmes, a man-child moonlighting as the world's only consulting detective?) by sticking his fingers in his ears and yelling, "Stop it! Just stop it, Molly!"

She'd finally had enough and grabbed his wrists, pulling his fingers from his ears and holding his hands out between them. "Jesus, Sherlock! What is it? Why are you acting this way? Why is it so hard to believe that I love you?"

He didn't even try to fight her grip on his wrists, which in and of itself was unusual. His face, almost panicked before, slid into a strange apathetic mask and his breathing suddenly calmed. "Because no one could ever love a freak like me." The way that he said it, in words so clearly not his own, made her heart break. Clearly, someone had made him believe this. Someone, probably multiple someones, had repeated such a sentiment to him so often, that he had completely internalized it. It was a fact to him. And when faced with the possibility of someone loving him, with that fact not being a fact…

"Oh Sherlock," Molly murmured, lowering his hands. She stepped closer to him and planted one of her hands in his hair and the other landed on his shoulder. Stroking at his curls, she gathered her thoughts, making sure that she said the right thing. "You brilliant, wonderful, idiotic man. You are loved; do you hear me, Sherlock? You are loved."

His hands wrapped around her waist and dragged her closer, and he buried his face in her hair. "No, no, no…" he whispered, over and over again. "Doesn't make sense…no one loves a freak." Molly didn't know how to respond, although she was filled with the sudden urge to find that Sergeant Donovan, the woman who came in with Greg sometimes, and punch her. She'd heard the other woman refer to Sherlock as "the Freak" more than once and although it was highly unlikely that she was the one who had hammered this thought into his head, her careless moniker for him couldn't have helped.

"You deserve love, Sherlock. Of course you do, everyone does," she whispered to him, moving her hand from his shoulder to across his back, soothing him. Her other hand gently stroked his hair. "I love you, Sherlock Holmes."

"I don't understand it, Molly," he muttered, still not looking up at her. "I have affection for you and John and Mrs. Hudson. I do. I've often wondered if it's love. But…" He finally looked to her and she couldn't help but smile sadly at him. While he was 'dead,' she'd gotten to know Sherlock Holmes quite well, and now she could always tell when he was being honest. Or at least she was pretty sure she could. And right now, the expression on his face reminded her so much of that night in the morgue, when he'd told her that he needed her. The raw emotion and confusion in his expression took her breath away. "What if I love you wrong? What if I love all of you wrong?"

Under normal circumstances, if anyone else had posed this question to her, she would have laughed. But with Sherlock Holmes looking at her, his ice blue gaze searing into her heart and his arms wrapped so firmly around her, laughter was the furthest thing from her mind. "There's no right or wrong way, Sherlock. There isn't. And whatever you give us…it's enough. And what we give you…well, I guess I hope it's enough too." She brought both her hands up and they hovered above his cheeks briefly, before cupping them. Tilting her head forward so her forehead met his, she whispered to him, "I love you, Sherlock Holmes. I. Love. You."

Something in her little speech seemed to reach him, because his hold on her loosened slightly, became a little less desperate. "There's no right or wrong way? How I've been doing it all along…that's love?"

With the atmosphere lightening slightly, Molly managed a chuckle. "You could try being a little less of a prat sometimes. That makes love a bit easier," she teased and Sherlock actually managed a small smile in return. His mouth opened and he looked up at her, determined, before Molly put a gentle finger over his lips. "You don't have to say it back, Sherlock. I know…it must be strange for you. I don't want you to feel like you're obligated to say it back. But…I just want you to believe me when I say it to you, ok?" He nodded slightly and gently kissed the finger that still lay across his lips. Molly giggled and returned her hand to his cheek, cradling both again. "I'll go get you a coffee, yeah? Give you a bit to…process." She smiled sweetly at him and brushed her lips against his forehead.

Only then did his grip on her release and she continued to smile at him as she stepped back. She debated about saying it again, but quickly dismissed the notion and simply nodded and turned around, making for the staff lounge.

She came back, two cups of coffee in tow, to find Sherlock in practically the same position she had left him in. The tests that had seemed so urgent only a few moments ago were now all but forgotten as Sherlock seemingly stared into space. Molly imagined he was reorganizing his mind palace or something, trying to synthesize and file away this new information into the correct rooms. Quietly, she set down the coffee cup next to his work space and disappeared into her office quickly to grab a few reports.

Glancing at him as she walked back out, she sat down at the other end of the table, close enough so that she knew that he could see her in his peripheral vision. Since he'd returned, no matter how much he pretended to be like the old Sherlock, he hated to have the people he cared for out of his sight. John said that he'd even noticed it when Lestrade called them in for cases, how Sherlock had stopped asking Greg to leave the room to allow him to think and would get antsy when one of Greg's underlings would call him away. Silently, she started working on the reports, casting surreptitious glances his way every so often.

After about twenty minutes, without any warning, he got up and walked over to her. Molly, of course, had noticed the second he moved and stood to meet him. Still without speaking, Sherlock simply wrapped his arms around Molly in an embrace, his body curving so it wound around hers, his face buried in her neck and his arms tightly grasping her to him. His lips brushed against her skin, almost tickling, as he murmured absently, "Molly. My Molly. Molly Hooper. The one who counts, the one who forgives, the one who saves…the one who loves me. Molly, Molly, Molly…"

She simply gripped him tighter, one of her hands reaching up to tangle into the hair at the nape of his neck. Turning her head, her lips brushed against his temple and he let out a shuddering breath against her skin, before slowly releasing her from the embrace. He drew back slightly, staring down at her intently as both of Molly's hands came to rest on his shoulders. Smiling, she did nothing but nod and quietly respond, "That's right. Your Molly – for as long as you'll have me."

Sherlock scoffed at her comment and retorted, "I'm rather certain it will be until you finally come to your senses and tire of me."

But Molly shook her head and let her hands run from his shoulder down to his chest, coming to rest over his heartbeat. "I love you, Sherlock," she said softly, honestly, gazing up at him with all the love and warmth that she could muster.

And he replied as honestly as he could. "Thank you."


End file.
